Kevin Duffy: This is true AAC basketball, at least for now

Updated 12:06 am, Sunday, February 16, 2014

HARTFORD -- For honesty on The American, talk to newly hired Cincinnati athletic director Mike Bohn, who made no secret of his desire to launch the Bearcats into a power league.

Or talk to Shabazz Napier, as open with his opinions as he is incredible at basketball.

After Napier's career-high 34 points, after his buzzer-beater rimmed out in regulation and his 3-pointer splashed the net in overtime, Napier was asked if he enjoys these games.

You know, the afternoons when Lasan Kromah contorts his body like a Twizzler to save a loose ball; when the pure speed and athleticism are consistently mesmeric and the disparity on the scoreboard is consistently minuscule; when the 16,294 people in the XL Center are pushing the noise to Big East decibels, but nobody in the building is half as fired up as Kevin Ollie.

You know. Those games.

"I definitely enjoy it," Napier said. "I kinda hate playing against teams we're just going to demolish. I really do. I think I play bad in those games because I don't even want to play. But I understand that these games right here are much-needed and I think we did what we had to do to win this game."

Yes, it's time to get honest about this Saturday afternoon classic, about UConn and Memphis and about The American.

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You thought the buzzer-beater was down, didn't you? Of course you did. It left Shabazz Napier's hand (that's usually a good start) and it quite literally was one-third of the way through the hoop.

You thought overtime favored the visitors, though, didn't you? Toward the end, Memphis was scoring with ease while every UConn bucket was a struggle. It kept up in the extra session, too.

What essentially became the game-winner played out like this: The crowd noise hushed as Napier calmly held the ball atop the key, signaling for Phil Nolan to set a screen. He did, and Memphis forward Austin Nichols hedged. Napier arced a contested 3-ball over the 6-foot-8 Nichols.

Huskies, 79-74. Cue the XL eruption. Cue the honesty.

"I know I may be biased," said UConn coach Kevin Ollie, "but he's the best guard in the country. Hands down."

UConn needed all 34 Napier points and every one of its 36 free-throw attempts to complete the sweep of Memphis.

Although there didn't appear to be any obvious no-calls (from my seat, at least), Memphis curiously attempted only nine at the line.

"The three referees -- they're all great guys and honest men," said Memphis coach Josh Pastner. "Sometimes calls go your way, sometimes they don't. That's not the reason we lost."

* * *

The gap in free throws is akin to the AAC's gap in talent. It's pretty much unbelievable.

Pastner said the league has the best top five teams of any conference. That may be true.

What isn't close to true is the notion that the other five are competitive. UConn avenged a loss to Houston with an 80-43 whipping. Then there was the 83-40 demolition of South Florida. Louisville beat Houston by 39, Memphis edged Rutgers by 32 and SMU squeaked by with a 23-point victory over Temple.

The AAC's top five is 34-2 against the bottom five.

The league's top five is 12-7 against teams from the Power Five conferences.

The AAC's bottom five is 3-8 against the big money leagues.

This conference in many ways mirrors the college athletics landscape. If and when the Power Five gains autonomy, if and when they provide student-athletes stipends, the gap between them and everybody else will only widen. It's a huge issue for schools like South Florida and Houston because they compete with lower-tier Power Five teams for recruits.

It's an enormous, potentially program-changing issue for Memphis and UConn, the schools that recruit at the highest level.

Commissioner Mike Aresco was in the house Saturday, and he reaffirmed that the AAC, which has gathered a nice pool of exit fees, is committed to providing the full cost of attendance stipends.

But what will happen next?

What happens when the Power Five institutes more luxuries and the money has dried up from the exit fees and not every school in the AAC can afford to follow?

Would UConn be allowed to keep pace with the Power Five if other AAC schools can't?

"We haven't yet decided on that yet, but we are wondering if we'll let individual schools make those decisions or if we'll have to do it as a conference," Aresco said. "For instance, there are some programs that are really good in one sport and they'd want to compete at a national level and they can't do it (in other sports)."

"Would that particular school be allowed to reinforce that particular sport?" Aresco continued. "And you're going to have Title IX issues. Obviously if there's a stipend, we want to make sure that it includes women's sports. A lot of it is still unclear and hasn't been settled."

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Whether UConn-Memphis remains a nationally acclaimed rivalry depends partially on the answers to those questions. If autonomy eventually screws UConn and Memphis basketball, the hype could fade.

Or, as both schools hope, it could always be like it was Saturday, a game in which UConn and Memphis seemed to release all the pent-up fire that had built in those 20- and 30-point wins.